Chapter XVII

A quarrel, but nothing wherefore.—_King Lear_, ii, 3.

Delighted with the little comedy he had devised, Mr. Dodd walked on toward home. At the gate he was joined by Jean.

“Why are you looking so particularly pleased?” she asked.

“I was thinking about a friend of mine who is very, very happy.”

“What made him so?” demanded Jean.

“He has just become engaged to a very beautiful young lady.”

“Oh,” she replied; “I thought you were looking happy on your own account.”

“No, no, indeed; far from it. On my own account I am deeply, desperately dismal.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know. What would you do?”

“When I feel like that I always go to Miss Esther and she talks to me.”

“Good. I will go straight to Miss Esther, and somehow I have a feeling that she will talk to me.”

“Do,” said Jean.

By this time the two had reached the East porch, where, as usual, Putnam was reading in the hammock.

“How do you do,” said Jean. “Where’s Miss Esther?”

“I think she’s in the library,” said Putnam. “Shall I call her?”

“No,” replied Jean; “Mr. Dodd wants to see her; don’t you, Mr. Dodd?”

“Oh, I do want to see her. I want to see her dreadfully.”

“What’s the matter with Dodd?” asked Putnam, as that gentleman went into the house.

“I don’t know,” said Jean; “but he’s got the blues something fearful. I’m so sorry for him.”

“Be sorry for me, won’t you?” said Putnam; “I’ve got the blues, too.”

“Why do you have the blues?”

“So you’ll be sorry for me.”

“But I’m always sorry for you.”

“Why?”

“Because you have such a dreadful disposition.”

“Yes, I have, haven’t I?” said Putnam, placidly.

“Yes, you have; and the worst of it is you don’t care a bit.”

“Do _you_ care?”

“No, indeed—why should I?”

Jean tossed her head, and Putnam observed, coolly, “If you bob your head about like that, you’ll lose that very beautiful pink rose out of your hair, which you have arranged with such accuracy and precision.”

“I don’t care if I do!”

“If you don’t care for the rose, then give it to me.”

“Indeed I won’t. I wouldn’t give you a rose for anything.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, because it’s so silly and sentimental.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean it in a sentimental way. I never thought of that. I just saw a beautiful rose, and wanted you to give it to me.”

“Oh, well, if you want it that way, then take it!” Jean snatched the rose from her hair, and threw it on the table between them.

“Give it to me,” said Putnam, dictatorially.

“I’ve given it to you just as much as I intend to. If you want it, take it.”

“I do want it, but I won’t take it, and you _shall_ give it to me.”

“I won’t do any such thing! You are altogether too domineering. It was all very well when you were an invalid, and ought to be read to, and coddled, and fussed over, but you needn’t think you can keep on ruling everybody who comes anywhere near you.”

“I don’t mean to rule you—”

“You’d better not,” she interrupted.

“But I’m going to ask you once more to give me the rose.”

“I have given it to you,” said Jean, stubbornly. “If you don’t take it, it’s because you don’t want it.”

“I only want it if you’ll give it to me,” said Putnam, more gently than he had spoken before.

“Nothing of the sort! You only want to have your own way. You’re a horrid, dictatorial, arrogant, overbearing, conceited man! and I _hate_ you!”

Jean ran down the steps and across the lawn toward her own home.

Putnam got up lazily from the hammock, and taking the rose from the table, smiled as he put it carefully away in his pocket-book.

“I did tease her,” he said, “but ’twas worth it!” And he smiled again.

Having held the session of the court of inquiry in the library, Miss Esther, after leaving Mr. Dodd, was in no mood to receive the shock which awaited her on the East porch.

“Where’s Jean?” she asked, when she saw Putnam alone.

“She got mad at me,” said Putnam, “and ran away home.”

“One of her usual playful jests, I suppose.”

“No,” said Putnam, “this time she seemed very much in earnest.”

“Oh, she doesn’t mean anything, Putnam. Don’t take her too seriously.”

“I’m not sure that I shall take her at all,” said Putnam. “She’s a little spitfire.”

Miss Esther, clasping her hands in despair, was about to speak, when Nora announced that Mr. Brewster was on the front veranda.

Brewster’s dejected air was quite in harmony with Miss Esther’s mood, but she was unprepared for the news he brought her.

“I am going away,” he said, “and I have come to say good-bye.”

By a whimsical association of ideas, Miss Esther suddenly realized exactly how Chub felt when she indulged in her favorite trick of sitting flat down on the ground and squealing. The elder lady did not squeal, but had circumstances permitted it, she would have been glad to do so. All in the same day her three clients had disappointed her hopes. She wrung her hands, tragically. “One woe doth tread upon another’s heels, so fast they follow!” she exclaimed.

“Yes, I, too, am sorry to go,” said Brewster. “I have had a very happy summer, and you have been very kind to me, Miss Esther.”

“But you are leaving us very suddenly.”

“I know it; but there are reasons—good reasons.”

“But Helen—Miss Fairbanks—does she know you’re going?”

“Oh, yes, she knows. I have just come from there.”

“And doesn’t she care?”

“No, I think not,” said Brewster, with his calm dignity.

“Oh, Mr. Brewster,” cried Miss Esther, “I wish she did care.”

“I wish so, too,” he replied.

“But have you made allowances for Helen’s excessive pride?”

“She hasn’t made allowances for mine,” said Brewster.

“Hullo, you people,” cried Lincoln Dodd, as he rushed up the driveway in his automobile; “is tea ready? I’m nearly starving.”

“Not quite,” said Miss Esther; “but it soon will be. Come on in.”

For the first time that summer, none of the girls came over to tea. Obliged to do all the honors herself, Miss Esther rose to the occasion nobly, and presided with her usual grace, her unruffled calm giving no hint of the perturbation of spirit beneath. But late that evening when a meeting of the conspirators was held in the library, Miss Esther confided to Abraham Lincoln Dodd her doubts of the final success of her Matrimonial Bureau.

“To think,” she said, “of that stupid Jean having a fight, a real fight with Putnam!”

“Oh, they’re always squabbling,” said Lincoln.

“Yes, but this time it’s serious. Putnam told me so. And now Helen has offended Mr. Brewster and he’s going away, and Lillian’s case is equally hopeless.”

“Why, what did you find out from father?”

“Why, it’s the strangest thing, and I’m not sure that I ought to tell you.”

“And I’m not sure, either, that I ought to tell you what Lillian said.”

“Well, I must know what you learned, so I’ll tell you what I found out. Your father was awfully nice, and he said that he was very much in love with Lillian,—very much; and he thinks she cares for him. And he wants to marry her, but he thinks you wouldn’t like it if he did.”

“Me!” exclaimed Dodd; “why of course I want him to marry her, and I’ll tell him so so that he will understand it!”

“No, no,” said Miss Esther; “he said not to let you know anything about it. He didn’t even want to suggest the idea to you for fear you’d be displeased.”

“Well, if that doesn’t beat all! Lillian said just the same thing about you. She didn’t say right out, you know, that she was fond of the Governor, but she said that even if she were she couldn’t marry him, for she felt sure that you wouldn’t approve of the match.”

“Me!” cried Miss Esther; “why of course I want her to marry him, and I’ll tell her so so that she will understand it.”

“No, don’t say a word. She expressly said that she didn’t want you to know she had ever had such a thought, for fear it would displease you.”

“Good gracious!” cried Miss Esther, exasperated beyond all endurance. “Was there ever such a lot of intractable men and ridiculous girls.”

“Why don’t you give them up?” suggested Lincoln.

“Never! I’m going to carry this thing through and you’re going to help me as you agreed. I haven’t brought these six people together and looked after them all summer, and brought them all to the very verge of success, to have my plans fail now. Jean and Putnam shall be persuaded to make up; though I don’t know how it will be accomplished, for he’s stubbornness itself and she’s just as bad. Helen and Brewster must be reconciled, and that’s harder yet, for she’s as proud as Lucifer and he’s more so. As to your father and Lillian—”

“Oh,” interrupted Dodd, “if they care for each other, surely they can be brought around.”

“Oh, I don’t know—Lillian is a perverse little witch; but anyhow, it shall be done. On that I am resolved, and if I don’t succeed I will be the first Adams who ever failed in a great undertaking.”

“And you will succeed,” said Dodd, carried away by her eloquence.

“I certainly shall,” said Miss Esther.